Border Collie owner smugness surpasses all other smugness, just like Border Collies surpass all other dogs. Whereas the pibble rescue people run around acting like watered-down bleeding-heart eco-fascists trying to “save the pit bull” as if it were an endangered species, and pedigree show elitists prosthelytize for minions they can dump puppies off on with breeding rights to outsource their budding kennels and help build entry numbers for majors at local shows, Border Collie people don’t need or want you to join their ranks. You simply aren’t good enough. Nor do those things you call dogs belong in the same universe as the Border Collie. Really, what are you thinking?
The pibble people would be thrilled if everyone owned a pit bull, in fact this is their idiotic authoritarian plan to solve the pit bull problem: put breeders of other breeds out of business so that people who want dogs have no other choice but to buy used pit bulls at the shelter. It’s like a socialist’s command and control economy pipe-dream. Their epic levels of smugness are only tamed by the sheer volume of self-deception they have to maintain to think this is both possible, let alone probable. They rage against BSL which tells people they can’t have pit bulls, but their alternative is a fantasy where they tell everyone they can’t have any dogs but pit bulls. They have no sense of irony about this either.
The show people are also want of converts, but they have to be subordinates because they don’t want real competition in the breed ring but like any good Ponzi scheme the only real payoffs come if you can maximize the number of underlings who are servicing your needs by filling out entry numbers and becoming customers for your stock, and minimizing the number of “mentors” upstream whose ass you have to kiss and stock you have to buy. In this manner, show people are sort of like hipsters: they want to be in on the ground floor of the NEXT big thing, just so they can smugly tell you about how they were all over it before it was popular. When their ego is sated with having the masses appreciate their fine taste in dogs, they have to jump ship and get into a new breed.
Unlike pit bulls and show dogs which are valued by their smug owners for their faults instead of their merits, no such backwards value system exists in Border Collies. We’re smug about our dogs because they are simply superior in every way to that thing you other people own that’s merely a dog. Really, who are you kidding with that weak-sauce? If 100,000 years of domestication has left you with that miserable hirsute flesh bag, while it’s graced us with the divine being that is the Border Collie, there must be a God and he has a wicked sense of humor. The only thing that can explain your lesser dogs is that they are a punchline to a cosmic joke.
If you don’t already have a Border Collie, you are unworthy of a Border Collie. It’s like Border Collie original sin: you’re screwed before you even get in on the game and only by dog’s grace can you be redeemed, but only after living in sin as a lesser being and a ceremony with water, fire, and an interpretive dance expressing the sacred and profane. The only legit way to get into Border Collies is shrouded in mystery, but rumor has it that it involves midnight ceremonies of selected initiates who must make blood oaths after being deemed worthy by the sacred elders and enduring humiliating hazing rituals. It’s more daunting to “ascend” into the Border Collie inner circle than it is to pledge an all male fraternity at a college you didn’t even get into as a fat gay poor ethnic woman. It makes the Skull and Bones initiation ceremony look like Black Thursday sales at Walmart.
Border Collies have no faults, and you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine if you criticize them and don’t even own one. That’s not a fault, that’s authentic Border Collie behavior that you just don’t understand. You can’t even comprehend. The fault is in you, not the dog. I mean really, this is as daunting as explaining the majesty of unicorn-dolphin-hybrids leaping over crystal waters at a blazing sunset on a planet with twin emerald moons rising against an azure-hinted Milky Way to a deaf person. Those assholes never listen.
Your lifetime of experience with that wolf-like-drizzle you call a dog counts for nothing since it’s not a Border Collie. You might as well be a cat person. Psh.
Border Collies are a lifestyle choice aspiration, if we even let you in the club, and one that comes with a mortgage on acreage and pets for your pet. That’s right PETS FOR YOUR PET. Lesser dogs might be satisfied with a tennis ball or a bumper, but not the Border Collie. Their evolved state requires a much more interesting and expensive form of entertainment. No sheep, no goats, no service. A gerbil or a hamster won’t do, but they will herd those in a pinch. Or eat them. And we all know that sheep have a death-wish that makes goldfish look well adjusted. Scientifically this is because they literally have shit for brains and this is also why Border Collie people call sheep pellets “smart pills.” There’s a special amino-acid in them that fuels the Border Collies highly evolved frontal cortex. When your animal eats feces, it’s disgusting and you should be ashamed. When a Border Collie supplements its unique intellectual needs with carefully chosen pre-digested nutrient pellets, it’s part of a highly refined balanced diet.
If you don’t have a real economic interest in sheep, you better fake it till you make it with a hobby farm financed by marrying up or inheriting a trust fund you can burn thorough. And you must be righteously indignant against anyone who calls your hobby farm … a hobby. It’s WORK fuckers, as serious as that last place to post ARBEIT MACHT FREI above its gates. Yeah, we went there, and we’ll send you there too if you don’t bow to our authority.
You’ll soon realize that mere pets for your pets are not enough. Your pets’ pets need pets. That’s recursive pets, yo. Fibonacci sequence pets. FRACTAL PETS! Although there’s no job that a Border Collie can’t do, they are after all the superior dog in both intelligence and athleticism (and really, are there any other qualities? Certainly none worth considering if they are not manifest in the Border Collie), you will find that your Border Collie will demand minions of its own to offload work burden and free its mind for more intellectual pursuits like pondering autological words in French. “Accentué,” n’est-ce pas?
This means that after you acquire a flock of sheep-pets for your Border Collie, those sheep will need a Livestock Guardian pet of their own. And then that LSD will need a Llama pet to keep it company, and that llama will need a Donkey pet to share the perimeter duty. And then the menagerie will pow-wow over dinner one day and decide that they would all enjoy some Pygmy goat pets just for kicks. This never ending spiral only stops when your animals declare suffrage and vote your ass of the island.
And as long as you’re making pygmy goat cheese canapé hors d’oeuvres to justify your $10k a month feed bill, you may as well throw in some backyard chickens too, because nothing says legitimate farm like dropping a few thousand dollars on a chicken McMansion setup that will save you the embarrassment of spending $1 on eggs at the grocery store. It’s just unseemly to be seen buying anything with small bills when you’re a Border Collie owner, and really who wants to eat the same foods that normal people eat?
Screw that, you need backyard ducks instead. Nay, SQUAB. Yes, squab. I don’t care if you think they’re technically the same species as those flying rats down at the park, my Columba livia domestica sleep in a two-story stone dovecote with central air, not on a street lamp over a park bench with a heroin junkie in a soiled parka.
Now once you’ve achieved the thirty second degree of Border Collie smugness, the only way to ascend to the next level is to import a dog from the UK. I mean seriously, despite the Border Collies here in America excelling in every imaginable pursuit and there being at least 10 times more of them here than in the UK, the real deal can only be found by taking a vacation to the “Old Sod” and bartering with a hobbit for one after you best him in a battle of riddles and fork over a fortune in gold bullion that you acquired by killing a dragon.
Then there’s the written exam.
SAT (Smugness Aptitude Test) Verbal Question 15:
[15.] Answer the following analogy:
American Border Collies : UK Border Collies :: Sparkling Wine : ?
(a) Dom Pérignon Rosé Champagne 1997 vintage
(b) Mad Dog 20/20
(c) Boons Farm Flavored Apple Wine
(d) Mogen David’s Extra Heavy Malaga
(e) Boxed Franzia Zinfandel
Everyone knows that innovation and adaptation is entirely over-rated and that both class and majesty reside in anything antique from across oceans where the history comes from. If you aren’t drinking a rare and expensive Champagne®©℠℗™ that you traveled to Épernay to buy first hand after an extensive tasting, you’re just drinking piss water calling itself “sparkling wine” that probably comes in a bag shoved in a cardboard box. Hand-plucking a Border Collie puppy off of a field in Devon is like visiting the Porche Headquarters in Stuttgart to pick out a limited edition concept car and taking it out on the Autobahn before you put it on a boat back home to announce that your midlife crisis is more awesome than your friends’ midlife crises.
It really only gets more smug if you write a book about it.
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“If you aren’t drinking a rare and expensive Champagne®©℠℗™”
Did anyone else pronounce ‘champagne’ in your head like Christopher Walken on SNL? Fine champagna!
Jess Ruffner recently posted..Afghan Hounds in ‘The Egyptian,’ 1954
I always pronounce it that way in my head when I have to spell it. Lol
We could just spell everything the way it sounds. I’m told that many languages are written phonetically, and that English use to be also. So what we are really writing is a stagnated form of English, that we no longer speak.
Properly, in spoken English written down, it should be spelled “Shampane”.
How would you pronounce “Xoloitzcuintli”?
Or we could make the written spelling so that it jives with phonetic English pronouncement. How much easier is it to answer this question: How do you pronounce ShowLowEatsQuinTill?
Want another example of failure to update? The booby prize has got to go to schools that still make nurses and medical doctors learn all the terms in latin. I kid you not.
Do you have any idea, not just what an extra burden it is on students, but what a brain drain it is on doctors to make them have to translate their own words as they switch back and forth from writing latin to talking with patients?
Other countries teach nurses in the language they speak. You think China makes their nurses learn latin?
Culture often bogs down people, for example, I searched for how to do something on my new tablet, and the searches came back only useful for earlier versions of the tablet, but if I used more specific terms for my tablet, I got no useful searches because everyone calls all the versions by the same name.
What I needed was a button which would only return search results less than 3 years old, or newer. Already the internet is getting outdated. The hardware keeps updating, but the info on it grows old quickly.
Cultures rise and decline, maybe their languages get too codified and creaky? English has always been a flexible language, now we have to write like retired school teachers – because the teachers have taught us that using outdated writing forms is correct and important, so the conformist grow up and still judge writing by its conformity. Why waste the effort?
But now it has become hard for me to argue the point because, when typing on newer keyboards, I make typos and misspell things. But I always did say that spelling was stupid or crazy. Now I know it is simply really outdated.
Oh yes, I wish the Chinese would bloody well learn Latin. Just try mixing Mandarine/Cantonese names with English common names to get a result? If it’s medicine you could very well be dead already, having choked on a tiger penis.
Science has one language Latin, one we can all understand. This is neither offensive nor cumbersome to anyone, it just makes things plainer, broadens understanding considerably.
Since being in China I’ve all but lost the ability to be understood, its rather annoying, at least botanically speaking.
YES! THE CONTINENTAL! LOL!
So are Borzoi so middle class now, because you can just buy one? But a BC needs a farm? I love it. So right on. You have obviously actually met these same people! The show people try to put on airs, but the boutique farms people believe their own crap more! Great post.
Best way to end Border Collie smugness? Have Border Collies, but no farm, no sheep, arrive in a banged up car full of friends, BCs, and treibballs. It might be easier and more fun than sheep, but it doesn’t scream “I have so much money, I had to buy a sheep farm as a tax write-off”.
Borzoi is Russian for BORING! And it’s an insult to all things holy to give your Border Collie a plastic or rubber toy or put a collar around its neck! Such things are degrading for the dog and are for the bedroom and the Mrs. only!
In reference to Borzois:
Great essay and could be applied to many breeds. Borzoi certainly being one of them.
You many be able to purchase a single Borzoi but almost all the Borzoi I know are part of multi-Borzoi homes. Since they are hounds – which tend to be selectively bred to tolerate living in large groups (“packs”) – it is relatively easy to have multi-Borzoi homes with little conflict.
During the recent Polar Vortex attack we had to bring all of our dogs in from their various outside areas (it doesn’t matter of they are originally from Russia they are not going to tolerate a sudden drop in environmental temperature from mid 40F to 4 F) and I had no serious fights even with dogs who do not normally live together.
We tend to say that “Borzois are like potato chips” in that it is hard to stop with just one…
I don’t know, Chris, we put rings in BULL’s noses, not cow’s noses. I think the collar and leash should be on the husband, not the wife!
Yes! The collar is for the Gentleman, and the toys are for the Mrs. To use on whomever she wants. Just not the dog.
Is that “just not the dog” or “not just the dog”? After that blackfish post (good one, and I saw the show), I was just wondering….
In reference to Borzois: Actually Borzoi is Russian for “fast or swift” only as applied to dogs and to the sort of newspaper writer who dashes off stories in great haste.
Great essay and could be applied to many breeds. Borzoi certainly being one of them.
You many be able to purchase a single Borzoi but almost all the Borzoi I know are part of multi-Borzoi homes. Since they are hounds – which tend to be selectively bred to tolerate living in large groups (“packs”) – it is relatively easy to have multi-Borzoi homes with little conflict.
During the recent Polar Vortex attack we had to bring all of our dogs in from their various outside areas (it doesn’t matter of they are originally from Russia they are not going to tolerate a sudden drop in environmental temperature from mid 40F to 4 F) and I had no serious fights even with dogs who do not normally live together.
We tend to say that “Borzois are like potato chips” in that it is hard to stop with just one…
Russian peasants and their potatoes! Nyet! Border Collies are like Caviar: if you have to ask, you can’t afford them!
Yeah, but when ‘caviar’ goes bad, you can by 55 lbs of it at the dogpound cheap.
Border Collies never go bad. They never see the inside of a shelter. You’re mistaking them for those poorly named English and Australian Shepherds who are so jealous they front as Border Collies and when their owners are disappointed because they don’t live up to the high standards of the Border Collie they get dumped.
Apologize at once for besmirching the name of the Border Collie!!!!
Oh I apologize profusely. Is “Border Collie” breeder shorthand for Lassie Collies with borderline personality disorder? I’ve heard they can be a bit intense.
The reason that you can’t comprehend the megalomaniacal quasi-Aspergers elitist majesty of we Border Collie breeders is because you have not progressed to the next stage of human evolution as we have.
We, and our dogs, are simply ascendant lifeforms. No questioning!
Chris, sounds like you need to go the men’s room and pull out whatever you got stuck where-the-sun-don’t-shine (just trying to be helpful).
We Border Collie Breeders no longer need to defecate. Pure, flawless, pre-cut diamonds just flow out.
Must be hard on the plumbing, and the bathroom pipes too.
One of the many burdens we carry for the sake of humanity.
We also walk on water (the Lord is my SHEPHERD), which makes swimming a real challenge.
Are “Lord” and “Caviar” your puppies’ names?
You’re very close! They are named “இ or the dog formerly known as Princess” and “Prufrock.”
The walking on water reminds me of a joke about a young lad sent off by his father to buy a Border Collie for the farm.
The young lad arrives at another farm to view a Border Collie for sale. A man greets him with the Collie for sale at his heal. They both walk to a nearby pond and the man says, “Watch this”, as he throws a stick out onto the pond. The Collie goes after the stick running across the top of the water and brings it back to the man. The young lad turns to the man saying, “Did I just see that dog walk on water.” “Yes”, replies the man. The young lad strikes a deal there and then for the Collie and makes his way home to his father with the Collie proudly beside him in the Landrover.
When he gets home, his father greets him and asks, “Was the dog any good.” The yound lad says, “You watch this Dad”, throwing a stick out onto a pond and the Collie promptly runs across the top of the water, bringing the stick back to the young lad, who then turns towards his father, who says, “Son you’ve been had, that dog can’t swim.”
Ooops there I was thinking rather poverty stricken sheep farmer er Hobbit in Sod Land trying to flog off his bot ridden mutton as organic lamb.
Very funny. It must be a rude awakening for the American boutique farmer. Do they also drive Range Rovers?
hilarious
Until after the great Social Revolution Russian peasants never owned Borzois. Many dogs were actually killed during the revolution although some survived either because their owners took them when leaving for France and/or the Netherlands or when officers of the Czar’s army switched sides and joined the Red Army. The remained rare in Soviet Russia compared to their presence in Western Europe. When the Russians rolled into Germany at the end of the Second World War they sent any Borzois they encountered back to Russia.
Despite similarities in coat, and common colors, Borzois are very different dogs than Border Collies, they are predators with the ability to focus on hunting and little desire to ask the owner how they are supposed to hunt. They have low territorial drive.
However I have owned a Borzoi x Border Collie cross (such sighthound herding dog crosses are called “Lurchers” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurcher and are part of the English dog breeding tradition) and she was something very interesting. She had the bidability of the Border Collie but the athleticism, leg length and good hips of the Borzoi.
Discussion healthy dog breeding schemes, traditionally lurchers are never bred to each other – a sighthound x herding dog cross will be bred back to one of the parent breeds in one generation, then to the other lineage in the next generation or you may throw in a hunting terrier cross, etc.
Perhaps because they are still used in hunting there seem to be more “experimental” cross bred sighthound enthusiasts out in the margins of dog breeder dom than in some other breed types. People still get money for the “cold blooded greyhounds” bred in the American west for hunting, for example.
Are you trying to bring some science to a rant post? 🙂
Why would a poor Russian farmer want a wolfhound?
He probably dreams of finding a fat pig.
The wolfhound would be too stringy and tough. Lol.
The idea of dogs as middle, or now, working class or lower, status symbols is only a bit over 100 years old. People mostly wanted a dog which was useful to them. Sheepmen wanted a better sheepdog. Inuit valued a better sled dog, or arctic hunting dog, not a better terrier.
Seriously, a great post, you captured the theme of border collie, and purebred dog, smugness with a lasso made of lampoon.
Well now it all makes sense. I was recently told by an agility instructor that he doesn’t understand why people get “dogs like that, when they could get a Border Collie, those are much too heavy”. Referring to my Aussie pup.
No point joining a club if you don’t have a Border apparently lol.
I do wonder what he thinks about all the Kelpies and Koolies in his club, they are beginning to catch up to Border numbers here.
Kelpies and Koolies are lead-based paint versions of Border Collies that are manufactured in China and sold in Walmart next to the fish.
Kelpies and Koolies? Where is this club please?
🙂
Australia 🙂
Caviar, being fish eggs, is sold next to the fish. Kelpies are sold Down Under, and Koolies are what you watch out not to drink.
Great rant Chris ! The poor Border Collie breed the new status symbol in the Canine World. Every breed that became a prestige symbol suffered. More than enough reason for you to rant and rage.
Christopher, thanks for making me do several spit takes of tea and toast all over the train and my fellow miserable commuters….
Pure fascist smugness that only true BC fanatics could ever really appreciate. Love it! 🙂
I have experienced another dimension to your pyramid, the inverted “basement” triangle, which turns the triangle into a diamond shape. Below “psh you don’t own one” exists “TSK! You think you want to buy a BC puppy?”.
Below that level of the pyramid, in the sub-basement dwells those who merit: F-CK! Prove to me that you are worthy to buy one of MY puppies” – this attitude is commonly taken towards any friendly person who shows up in response to their ad of puppies for sale.
In all fairness, taking smugness to the level of “you must be a pile of sheep smart pills” is very commonly shown towards would-be pet owners by many purebred dog breeders, and is an often cited reason for getting the next puppy from a pet shop – where they won’t have to meet another snobby dog breeder, who sells them a poorly bred puppy.
Once you actual have fallen for the ruse, and seem through it, there is not much chance of making a fool out of the same buyer twice, so why bother putting on airs?
This post is about faults in people who control dog culture, not the dogs themselves, right?
I think that smugness comes from FEELINGS of superiority over other people, while intellectual smugness comes from THOUGHTS of superiority over other people.
To tell them apart: the intellectually smug tend to look you in the eye, and believe what they are saying is true. If extreme, they stare at your face with intense focus, cold eyes, and display anger at any sign that they deem as not enough acceptance of what they are saying. They tend to appear anal.
The emotionally smug can be better spotted by the hazy look in their focus, or their tendency to look down their nose at you, instead of looking at you eye to eye.
Both can be from culture, often, unfortunately, from one’s religious leader or from listening to critical or flattering preaching (preaching aimed directly at the congregation). But these attitudes can be caught from secular subculture too, like from the general beliefs and attitudes that other dog breeders, as a group expect newcomers/initiates to adopt as their own beliefs.
Intellectual smugness becomes a problem when it is based on any form of self-denial, including when compliance with one “must” causes the person to make themselves give up a part of whatever-it-is that-is-themself. It can NOT be cured with reason or logic. The wordy part of the brain has become so dominant that it has shut down the common sense part of the brain.I once lived where marijuana was legal, I didn’t like the feeling much, but I could easily notice how it lessened extreme anal traits in people. I guess the idea is not to push down the dominant part of the brain, which just makes the person sullen, but to uplift the enjoyment part of the brain – a restoring of balance perhaps.
But the emotionally smug get a sort of positive feedback because they aren’t thinking they have to be intelligent, they are feeling that they are better than other people. They are not going to be relieved when they are cured, they are apt to look for something else to feel smug about. Which might be how some of them ended up in dog culture.
> This post is about faults in people who control dog culture, not the dogs themselves, right?
Yes, but “The Organized Ranking of Increasing Levels of Feelings of Self-Satisfaction Among Persons Who Own and/or Breed Border Collies” was a bit long to fit at the top of the post.
Self-satisfaction is what you feel when you achieve your goal. Smug is what your parents feel when you achieve one of their approved goals.
Or something like that. I picture “smug” as people who feel affirmed in the training methods they employed upon another, but maybe I’ve spent too much time around competitive dog people? Dogs are never smug, but their handler, owner, and breeder often are.
I think it all boils down to “My dog is better than yours.” Smile.
I enjoyed your post, so I am writing you an Aesop’s fable about smugness, and how it can get started. To not insult people, it is about 3 flocks of birds.
The Eagles lived in the tree tops, soared on the wind, and dipped their talons into the lake to catch fish for supper. They were content.
The wild turkeys lived in the woods. Their life was filled with dangers, but they had learned to cope with that. They spent their lives shopping for food under the trees, and flying away from danger. They were content.
The domestic farm turkeys lived in an enclosure. Their food was plentiful, and they got fat, but life was easy. They were content.
Then one day the farm turkeys saw a hungry wild turkey and invited him in for supper. Soon the wild turkey began to tell them about his adventurous life, and the farm turkeys followed him out into the woods. But they were farm turkeys. They didn’t know how to find water! The didn’t see the snake in the grass, the lynx in the bushes, or hear the coyote on the other side of the hill. They couldn’t fly well enough to roost high in the trees and bears snuck up on them at night.
In the morning the farmer rounded up the remaining farm turkeys and herded them back to the farm.
But the turkeys had seen the bigger world, and they weren’t content to stay on the farm. Now they were sad. They were unhappy at being restricted to the farm, but knew they were ill-equipped to live in the woods with their cousins.
Then they saw an eagle in the sky. The farm turkeys said “Why should we be afraid? We have been though the woods and out the other side. Let’s go live like eagles. So they left to sit in tree tops by the lake. To be an eagle, one must eat fish. But turkeys don’t fly so well and they drowned in the lake.
Next day the farmer rounded up the remaining turkeys and drove them back to the farm, and criticized them for being so foolish as to try to be wild turkeys or eagles. The turkeys listened to the farmer and stayed there, but they were sullen.
So the farmer’s wife came out and praised them for being so intelligent. The turkeys liked hearing that, much better than the truth. She told the turkeys how smart they were to live where people are your servants, and they bring you food, they make you shelter, they patrol the boundary to keep out carnivores. Now the turkeys puffed out their chest with pride. Yes, they were smart to live like this! They weren’t just happy they were smug. And all was well, until Thanksgiving.
The moral of the story being: don’t buy a bird dog to try to look like a hunter with leisure time, if you are a busy city person, don’t buy a herding dog to try to fool people into believing you own a ranch, don’t buy any dog to fool yourself into believing you are what you really are not.
Accept that you aren’t a jogger, or an outdoors person, that you aren’t a veterinarian made to ‘fix’ suffering dogs, give up the idea that buying a fantasy long haired dog will make you look like a model, or that buying a muscle dog will magically make you macho.
Pick a dog who can live your lifestyle and who can be a friend in your home. That is something dogs can do.
Buying certain breeds of dogs to send a message about yourself is a rampant and widespread problem in human culture. While the welfare issues differ by breed and message (think toy purse dog vs. fighting dog), it is true that conspicuous consumption of dogs as symbols is a major issue.
What you said is 100% true. But are you aware that there exist people who pick a dog breed, not as a conscious attempt to mislead other people or to try to project an image, but because they pick the breed using their own feelings?
Because of this, you can say that, while they might not verbally THINK that owning a border collie will make them a cowboy, they FEEL that it will transform them, and they choose the breed based on their feelings, not their thinking.
They may KNOW that a bc is not a good dog for their apartment, but they will choose a dog that appeals to their fantasy, and they would keep a horse in their apartment if they could.
For them, fantasy trumps reality. And there is some of that in all of us.
This is where the conundrum of “why do you want to own xyz” comes into play.
I’m a horse person — this plays out big time in that world. As horses aren’t really pets (no matter how much the newly formed horse rescues like to say they are), there can be a multitude of reasons for getting a horse/getting a new horse — some legitimate, but all containing a level of “vision” (sometimes to the point of insanity with all the hilarity, chaos, and possible threat to livelihood that can come with that one).
In fact, at the risk of being smug beyond anything you dog folks can even dream of, I’d say the horse world has a wrap up on this; dog world? Amateurs!
Or you acquire a particular breed like I did – I went to a shelter and the dog picked me, rather than me picking the dog.
Actually I wanted a mongrel but they were all out of mongrels – instead there were frankendogs with mushed faces / stumpy legs or those rats that misguided people who believe they own dogs dress up in booties and tutus and carry around in hangbags.
Plus one dog I (in my interminable ignorance) mistakenly believed to be a border collie but, since those vaunted dogs never see the inside of something as insulting as a dog shelter, must have been a border copy instead (probably an English Shepherd / Welsh Sheepdog / Australian Shepherd mix / Black and White mongrel *delete as appropriate*).
And of course I keep this border copy in my tiny city apartment, which is ok because he can’t possibly be a REAL border collie 🙂
What does it say that I would totally have a Chihuahua if I wasn’t full up on herding mutts?
Jessica recently posted..A Dog wearing an Ecollar
It means that you would be firing on all smugness cylinders: pedigree and rescue.
Now if only it was a PekeXPit BullxChihuhua, with a missing leg and a kumquat phobia, that belonged to Michael Vick’s best friend and whose sire or dam won Westminster one year, and that you’ve taught (through love only) to be a therapy dog.
Just don’t let the Border Collie people know you have one — or just explain that you felt sorry for it and rescued it (actually, that your Border Collies picked it out, even better)…and then quickly go buy a/bigger hobby farm and import a trial winning Border Collie and write a book about it, to keep your pastoral cred up.
At which point you could be like the Triple Crown winner in the smug pyramid.
I like a lot of this and I always loved Aesop’s fables. And the main premise is true. Don’t try to be something you’re not.
A hobby herder is not a real rancher. People with lots of excess income for buying sheep will never understand just how hard it is to be a true ranch hand!!! Those people are few and far between.
Of course, Chris has made it clear many times, you don’t need to be a rancher. You need to be the sort to keep your herding dog active, busy-minded and happy.
I’ve seen people with ridgebacks, malinois, and kelpies, who all were fat or disabled or both, who found ways to keep their hunters and herders fit and working and happy. Such often depends on the individual animal involved and the dedication of the owner, but by and large, you don’t, striclty speaking, need to be a jogger or so on. THe dog doesn’t care about how much exericse, physical and mental, that YOU get. The dog needs to get HIS own needs met.
Coming from someone who lives in the city but is cursed with a dislike for most breeds always recommended to us; usually brachycephalics and low intelligence animals, or giants with associated health issues.
HAHAHAH! This is a good one! And so very true.
…I’m going to have to start getting with the program or they’ll kick me and my dogs out of the club…although I would like to eventually move back to a small farm (but bonus points for actually starting out at that point in the first place…I’m bloody authentic!).
Although my BCs (and my old BCxTexas Heeler) gathered up horses…take that! If sheep pellets make them smart, then eating (and rolling in) road apples makes them…well, green and smelly, and in need of a bath. Let’s not forget the extra strength supplement of hoof rinds!
I consider it to be a case of compensation (like that Tiger Mom’s new book!) — I have to act superior because after years of hearing how my dogs are “just farm” dogs (no titles beyond local, fun stuff — disgraceful!) it’s given me an inferiority complex…or something, which actually makes me superior (just ask Tiger Mom)…or something, yeah, that’s it!
So where would I fall on the hierarchy if I decide to RESCUE a Border Collie who has PROBABLY BEEN ABUSED, then try to train it to get a herding title AND be a therapy dog?
Let’s see, if I go on Petfinder and type in my area code and search for “Border Collie”, what comes up?
Wow….I get a bunch of black and white pit bulls that are actually “Border Collie mixes”! So I can have a dog that looks EXACTLY like a pit bull, only it’s actually a short haired Border Collie, and it comes pre-loaded with all types of behavior and temperament problems. My head is going to explode!
I win! Give me the ring, Frodo!
Nah, the only way you get to be smug about rescuing dogs is if it’s one of those little fluffy dogs (or hairless), or tea cup chihuahuas, or a pit bull. Those are the only real dogs in the pound, er rescue! They are the only real dogs in need of saving! because they are abused, and only sold at pet stores, who only get them from puppy mills, because puppy millers only breed those dogs…and for a mere 20 cents a day, less than a cup of kibble, you could be saving them, but nooo, you have to go all BC and doom the real victims to a life of horror!
Plus, everyone knows that those BCs, GSDs, Labs, assorted other gundogs or hounds etc. cannot possibly be purebred…as they do not go to the pound, er, rescue. Just as both the breeders and the shelter people about this. How dare you try to foist of your obviously not BC/etc. whatever as an actual BC!
And obviously a cruel trick you are playing upon an unsuspecting public by taking attention off the real dogs at the pound, er rescue!
*the local shelter did get in a BC/Pitbull mix that indeed look exactly like a short haired, terrier eared BC. She was honestly a very cute dog — very sweet and biddable too (ok, and seriously energetic — but she loved to play ball so it was easy to excercise her)…definitely preferable to the usual PitxRottiexMastiffxalligator mixes that come in (because she was half BC of course)
I agree Chris what makes this more than annoying and frustrating is the lack of Stewardship and Guardianship for the welfare of the pure breed by the self proclaimed Hierarchy. They are in my opinion Legends in their Own Minds.
There’s a woman who professses to be a breed “Steward” for koolies, and kelpies, such that she feels purity is more important than possible outcrossing down the road to prevent future genetic bottlenecks.
Even if she told puppy buyers what they were getting with one cross, that would not be good enough for her. Because, as a “steward” she would not be holding to the purity of the breed.
“Steward” in itself, is a term that gives people smugness.
A very clever post that made me smirk more than once. It’s all too true. Memories of Jon Katz book came to mind immediately. Thanks for the humour.
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Hilarious! Some names of people popped into my head reading this. Good stuff.
I can’t be the only one who thought the “author” at the top of the smugness pyramid was yourself.
Blogging is totally a legitimate form of self publishing! I shall now entertain you with sappy prose poetry about my dogs.
Ode to a Soul-Dog
=================
Dog, Man’s Best Friend,
My best friend,
You, are a dog,
I, am a man,
We are best friends
Best Friends.
When I read this, I am picturing a man standing in a spotlight, his words are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite place the association. What am I quasi-remembering?
William Shatner, Rocket Man. Greatest Smug Actor ever.
Thanks, i hadnt seen this before, i love it. When i was younger, i, and lots of then adults, thought there would be cities on the moon and mars by now, so sad that my generation didnt make it so.
But Star Trek remains my beacon of light for reaching for the stars and building better civilizations based on tolerance.
You were doing Shatner? And I was thinking it might be from “So i married an ax murderess”. Don’t know why, it has been ages since i saw that movie and i don’t recall any poetry.
I LOVE Shatner and everything Trek.
Hilarious! As a reader at the very lowest part of this hierarchy (don’t have one &, horrors, don’t want one), I can attest that it exists in almost all venues you find BC’s and following the minute distinctions within the herding community requires a playbook (for us lesser beings at least). I am definitely a curiosity because I bought my dogs pets of their own, even though they are not technically ascendant lifeforms.
Today a dog trainer called Border Collies a “british mongrel” in brazilian television.
The fancy is going bananas. I find it hysterical and saddening.
Glad to be out of that scene. I hypothesize that there’s a geography of smugness, with concentrations in the West and NE.
Here in North Central Florida, I feel ‘blessed’ that there are few BC’s (people aren’t smug here, so much as superficially religious, hence the ‘blessed’). Many more goats than sheep…I’d love to see a BC try to herd goats ;-} Moreover our pit bull owners are mostly just poor folks going for the cheapest, most abundant tail-wagger. (I do wish the LCD of the dog world wasn’t so dog aggressive . . . would prefer it if they stuck to traditional hounds and curs), and the AKC pedigree dog world is so outnumbered by CKC and byb’rs that they have trouble finding a smug perch.
Jen, you live in one of the lands of the Thumperus biblicus — they’re plenty smug…just not about dogs (which are of the material world and thus not something to feel smug about)!
I know this, because the T. biblicus has a growing population where I live. There are times during good weather (missionary season as it were) when I wish my dogs were scarier looking…might save me a few knocks on my door.
Maybe that’s why pitties are so popular in the South! (as deterrents to door knockers)
You know…after having had encounters and being told that they were sad for me because it was obvious I was still in the clutches of Satan (I’m a lapsed Catholic who doesn’t go to church, and am not in the market for a new one — I think there is possibly a hierarchy of the hell-bound too, and I must be close to the top of the food chain with that, yay me) I can see where (if owning a Pittie really was a deterrent) it might be attractive…
Holy crud that was FUNNY!
I became a BC owner a year or so ago, after secretly wishing for a bc for years–but never thought I would own one as there’s always the cool pound dog for cheap that’s just as good at alerting you to strangers and might not need several walks and at least two intense play/work sessions a day to remain sane.
An email from a friend of a co-worker of a co-worker/friend came thru my email box describing a Border Collie needing a home–a retired working and trial dog who had sustained a substantial front-leg injury while herding sheep. He had been repaired by a Marin County Vet Specialist-probably cost enough to feed a third-world village for a year-and was farmed out to a young family who didn’t have enough time and an adequate fence. These kind folks realized they had too much dog on their hands and sought to rehome him–“Tweed.” I know, SMUG! I always feel the need to explain that that’s the name he came with, as I’ve always been turned off by smugness in dog ownership and would never have given a dog such a pretentious-sounding name, and I’m always afraid the vet will add on a Rich B*tch surcharge just ’cause my dog has such a smug-sounding name. ‘Cause, you see, the dog was IMPORTED by his original American owner from frikkin’ WALES!!
So I got the story straight from U.S. owner #1 that her friend had gone to the notable BC breeder’s kennel/Bed and Breakfast to find herself a dog, and called her friend in the US from the UK and said something like “Hey–you’ve got to see this great dog that D.S. [WHOM, INCIDENTALLY, HAS WRITTEN A BOOK] has here in Wales!
So, of course, US owner number one FLIES TO WALES to buy this dog who is now mine!
So I jumped at the chance to adopt this dog, knowing that I really needed an exercise-a-holic dog to motivate me to step away from the computer and get some cardio EVERY DAY.
But of course, family life gets crazy, and an erratic schedule and less than the required level of physical activity led my poor BC to get the runs FOR A MONTH and he started having trouble breathing. Local vet–who has been adequate in caring for our six other dogs–couldn’t diagnose him and refers me to the EXPENSIVE SPECIALIST Vet Hospital TWO HOURS AWAY, who figured out that he needed prednisone, which apparently–in retrospect–gave him heartburn. But did he complain about a little discomfort? HELL no–he continued to chase his Jolly Ball ’til he’s reguritating foam and refusing to eat and couldn’t stand up. When the BC doesn’t stand up, you scoop him up, leave the kids and their sleepover guests with the spouse, and take the BC back to the Expensive vet hospital–where they find he has pneumonia. So we’re talking a week in the dog hospital in an oxygen cage, numerous xrays, ultrasounds, endoscopy, biopsy, discovery of INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE, ESOPHAGITIS INTESTINAL OBSTRUCTION REQUIRING SURGERY, leading to DISCOVERY OF A DIAPHRAGMMATIC HERNIA, possibly sustained back in his roaming days w/ his young family shortly after his early retirement, and MEGAESOPHAGUS caused by heartburn caused by prednison requiring a new, EXPENSIVE, prescription-only food that–I’m not joking–needs to be rolled into little meatballs and fed while in a SIT position ONLY. Sit position must be maintained for 10 (now 5) minutes after feeding to make sure all food is down. So after his brush with death and vet care costs that would feed yet ANOTHER third-world village for a year, the boy is back to his old active self, though now takes liberties with me as he KNOWS with his all-knowing sheepdog mind that I probably made a deal w/ the powers that be that if he lived thru this ordeal–which MUST have been because I neglected to give him his three walks and two intense play sessions a day–I would make DARN sure it wouldn’t happen again. Funny thing is, with our three walks and two play sessions a day, he’s now saving MY life, because if it weren’t for him, my blood pressure would not have come down from Borderline HIgh and I would still be descending into the depressed, arthritic, stressed out rut that I was in when I found the announcement of his need for a new home, and that I had descended back into when he seemed to lose his spark. I’m an atheist, but DOG really is MY COPILOT right now, as cliche as that statement has become.And my BC with all his smug-sounding pedigree and lifesaving companionship is the MOST POOP-EATING dog I’ve EVER encountered. He now wears an Outfox hood (attached to his fleece-lined harness so as not to irritate his esophagus and under his raincoat since the Pred caused some hair loss!) any time he’s outdoors because he KNOWS with his cunning little sheepdog mind when I’m distracted, and the moment my attention is diverted he swoops in and eats POOP any chance he gets. He sometimes succeeds in picking up poop even with his “foxhat” on, but ya know what? I couldn’t do without him. Now that’s a dog that’s got me by the HEART!
So funny you should comment, I can read between the lines and recognize just about everything concerning your Tweed! Sheep raising isn’t so profitable in the UK any more, and many of the shepherds have had to turn to the tourist trade just to get by. The Bed and Breakfast plan is not unique, nor are sheep working demonstrations for tourists, sort of like those “here’s how the colonists churned butter” demonstrations in historical sites on the East Coast of the US.
For those not in the know, D.S. is almost certainly Derek Scrimgeour, and his book is Talking Sheepdogs: Training Your Working Border Collie.
Tweed is the 17th most popular male Border Collie name in the ISDS registry. http://www.bcdb.info/dognames.htm
Combining Northern California, Importing Derek Scrimgeour dogs, odds are good that your Tweed might have started out in the hands of Geri Byrne, of Tulelake, CA. She has lots of Derek’s dogs’ blood on her page: http://www.bcollies.com/StudDogs.htm
Just a guess though. There’s a long list of trial folks who have flown to the UK to get a REAL Border Collie only for it to not really work out.
Holy crap Lyn! You have my sympathies and I actually have to commend you for sticking by this dog and giving him so much expensive care. If your life gets crazy, it gets crazy, but many a person would drop such a dog as soon as the bills piled up, and after all, who would want to adopt a dog that needs activity AND has all those issues AND would be leaving a SECOND owner? Not many likely except for those who like to intentionally take on heartbreak dogs. And I mean no insult by that.
My kelpie has some mild IBD. I buy the expensive prescription foods. KNock on wood, he hasn’t the level of problems your guy does. If you hadn’t had the biopsies, I would ask if it weren’t being mistaken for IBS, which is more stress related. And yet I wonder if stress still can lead to IBD, which is generally considered some sort of immune disorder, though some say the gut bacteria being in disproportion may be a cause, rather than an effect. Hard to tell, but if a cause, I also sometimes wonder if prolonged stress plays a role in this as well, as many herding dogs seem to be rather prone to digestive issues.
THat’s just speculation in part. Texas A&M seems to be the lead on bacterial/gastroenterological studies and they are looking quite a bit at gut bacteria.
When I was in Australia, I was tempted by a litter of ACD pups that a farmer had. Someone running a bar in the town of Laura ( my true name, hence my desire to get there), mentioned it and the idea of getting a dream pup “from the source” was exciting. I don’t know if it was true smugness. I was not rich. It just seemed like an awesome thing to get the heeler from the place that invented the pooch. I dropped the idea in the end, knowing it would be an impulse, and that the dream would end with me back in New York.
I also went to Scotland and experienced the Bed and Breakfast scenario Chris speaks of, with a border collie herding demo. It was just outside Inverness. They had a litter on board! I took lots of pictures ( many came out lousy). Again, super tempting to ask about them but I contained myself.
The owner was pretty matter of fact about everything and the wife was fairly disgruntled. The farm was not the prettiest and the breakfast room looked like a real add-on. I got the impression that they went into the tourist biz very reluctantly and out of economic necessity. I don’t even recall the name of the place now though I could try checking old emails. But it gave the impression that everything Chris says is true. Times were tough.
I did appreciate the farmer’s disgust at the notion of hyper border collies. THey need work yes, but he said, a hyper dog is no good to me. They don’t listen, they can’t kennel well. Who needs it?
My kelpie has done well with city life, but like you, I have him to thank for certain things, like helping me lose weight! I’ll never be without a dog again.
I read this at work and laughed so hard the office next door asked me if I could keep the noise down….
Very funny, very true…. I’m looking into purchasing a farm for my own border collie and some “pets” for him as I write this.
In my world you meet other Border Collie owners and there’s an immediate sense of deep enduring sympathy and understanding and you know each of you has no less than 520 tennis balls and 700 shit bags crammed into your pockets.
Life with these dogs is tennis balls, shit backs, hair and a house of absolute nonsense but there’s something absurdly brilliant about it.